Pills

When I got back to my apartment I shoved everything on my desk (so I'm definitely not a neat freak) to the sides and set the two little white pills on the center of my desk, shut the bedroom door, and sat down propping my face up with my hands staring at them.  And that's how Sarah found me forty-five minutes later.  I was lost in my own thoughts and possibly in shock, jumping to the worst possible conclusions.

Sarah flung the bedroom door open and I jumped as she said, "What are you doing?"

I slowly looked up at her.

She rushed over.  The look on my face must have been of severe disappointment and confusion.  "What is wrong?"

I didn't say anything.  I didn't know what to say.  I just looked from Sarah down to the two pills.  "Are you thinking about killing yourself?"  She whisper-yelled at me.  "Over Luke?  He's not worth it!"

I shook my head then, snapping myself out of my stupor.  "What?  No.  Good grief, no.  Why would..."  I looked down at the pills then, again, and laughed.  "Oh my gosh, Sarah.  No, I'm not going to take this pills."

She leaned down close to my desk, peering closely at them.  "Then what's with your mood?  And what are those pills?"

"I don't know."  I shrugged my shoulders.  "I found them at Luke's."

"At Luke's?  Where was he?"

"He wasn't there."

"Why were you there?"

"I was going to confront him."

"Where was he?"

"Let me just tell you everything."  I then recapped everything that had happened. 

When I finished with shoving the two pills in my pocket and leaving, Sarah clapped her hands together and started rubbing them together.  "Looks like we got ourselves a mystery!"

I rolled my eyes, "Okay, Scooby."

"You can be my Shaggy if you want," she said winking at me.

"Anyway..."

"Right, so what are you going to do next?"

"I don't know.  I was feeling all brave and my adrenaline was pumping, so I figured this would be easy.  But, honestly, I don't know what to do.  Do I go to the police?"

"What if it's a legitimate prescription?"

"I know."  I sighed, defeated.  "That's the problem.  Should I just confront him?"

Before she could answer me, we heard our main door opening.  Sarah went out and came back in, telling me it was Elena.  She asked if I wanted her to shut the bedroom door.  I told her no, to send Elena in, so I could ask her.  Elena came in and I explained everything to her, including telling her about the night that I didn't remember anything, as I didn't think I had told her.  She sat taking it all in, nodding her head at the appropriate moments.

Elena quickly said, "Well, I could be wrong, but I believe that in the United States, all legal prescription and over the counter drugs have to have some sort of i.d. or imprint on them.  If they don't that makes them a vitamin or herbal or something like that.  Or illegal.  So does it have some sort of imprinting on it?"

I sat up, excited that I had some sort of step to take.  I grabbed one of the pills and Sarah grabbed the other and we both started scouring it, trying to find any sort of code.  There wasn't one. "No.  There isn't."

Sarah said, "Wait.  It looks like there's something filed down."  She leaned even closer to the pill she had, squinting at it.

I rubbed my fingers over the pill I had, unable to determine if there used to be something there, or not.  Sarah said, "It looks like a number one that's circled."

My lip started quivering and I looked at both of the girls and asked what I didn't want an answer to, "Was..." I paused, "was I drugged?"

Sarah and Elena exchanged a glance.  Elena said, shaking her head, "I don't know, Aleah."

Jumpy

After seeing the picture was gone and going off in a seething rage to Elena she had cut me off and told me there very well could be a rational explanation for who the girl was, and why the picture disappeared.  After much convincing, she told me I should just pack and get ready to leave the next day, and not speak to him about this until I came back from Illinois and could talk to him face to face.  She added that if the conversation didn't go well, it wouldn't be good for my tennis game, anyway.

So that's how I left the conversation- on the back burner- while I was gone in Illinois, with help from Sarah, Elena, and Maddie, texting or calling them instead of him every time I had the urge to come down in a reign of terror on Luke, telephonically. 

On Monday after arriving back at school, the first thing I wanted to do was stomp over to Luke's house and have it out.  But I didn't want to do it in my sweat pants, I wanted to do it looking good, naturally.  We had done minimal talking while I was gone, due to both of us being busy, and so he knew I was coming back on Monday, but didn't know the time and we didn't discuss plans.  So I decided the best course of action was to just go and surprise him.  I took a quick shower when I got home and threw skinny jeans, pumps, and a sheer long sleeve sweater with a camisole underneath.  I would've preferred a sexy dress, but due to the weather being in the mid 40's during the day, the coldest in a week and a half, I opted to be warm.  I left my hair down, wet, and wavy.  I was too much in a hurry to dry it.  I checked my phone to make sure I didn't have any messages from him and left.

I arrived at his house and held up my hand to pound on the door, and chickened out.  I turned to leave, but stopped.  I stood facing away from his door for a couple of minutes, trying to give myself some courage.  I took a couple of deep breaths.  Then I started thinking if one of the guys walked out of the house and saw me standing that way.  Or if they pulled up in a car.  Or a neighbor was watching me.  I started giggling.  I looked so awkward right now.  I quickly put on my big girl panties and turned to walk up to the door again.  I knocked loudly, causing myself to jump.  I thought, they're going to think I'm the police.

I didn't hear anything initially and turned to leave when I heard fast footsteps pounding down the stairs and a muffled, "I'm coming!"  I stopped and starting fiddling with the ends of my hair when the door flung open and there was Charlie.

"Oh hey, Aleah."  He reached over and gave me a hug.

"Hi, Charlie.  Is Luke home?"

"I don't know.  But, I'm busy though... you know what I mean?" He winked at me.

I scrunched up my face at him, realizing for the first time he was only wearing a pair of jeans that weren't even buttoned.  "I'm sorry for interrupting!  I can come back..." I trailed off

"Oh, no, come on in.  You can go up to his room and see if he's there.  You don't mind letting yourself out, though, if he's not, do you?"

"No, that's fine.  Thanks!"  I added as an afterthought, "And have fun?"

He grinned at me and then took off up the stairs, two at a time.  I slowly walked up the stairs, feeling awkward once again, like I was invading their space, even though I was only in a common hallway.  I got to the door and it was cracked open.  I tried looking through and didn't see Luke, nor Nate, but the lights were on.  I knocked kind of forcefully, hoping it would open the door up and I'd be able to see in.  It worked.  Their room was kind of messy, but neither of them appeared to be home.  I looked down the hall to the bathroom door and saw it was open and the light off.  I remembered the night of the "Thor Incident" when I had gotten dressed to leave, my school i.d. and favorite Burt's Bees chapstick had fallen out of my pocket.  Luke kept forgetting to bring it to me, and so I decided to step in and see if it was on his desk or dresser.

I quietly stepped into their room, feeling guilty and like I was trespassing, but I reminded myself that I wasn't doing anything wrong.  Although, if he had any convicting pictures that just happened to be laying out, I would make sure not to miss them.  I visually skimmed his side of the room, not seeing anything unusual, and looked over at his desk, against the opposite wall from the door, and saw my chapstick stood up on the edge of the desk.  I assumed my i.d. was next to it.  I briskly walked over and saw both my chapstick and i.d.  I grabbed them and dropped them into my purse.  Luke and Nate's desks were about 3 feet away from each other.  Being nosy, I leaned over to glance at a picture that was laying on Nate's desk, seeing it was of him and his girlfriend.  I smiled, thinking how adorable it was.  I started to turn to leave when something else caught my eye.

Laying on the floor, between the two desks, was a pill bottle.  I tediously squatted down, balancing myself on the tiny heels, and picked it up, seeing the label had been peeled off.  I honestly didn't know if Luke or Nate took any medication, and at this point, I didn't think that was something I would know, especially about Nate.  I opened the bottle and looked inside, seeing a generic looking small, white, round pill.  I frowned.  I immediately had an intense argument within myself about whether this was a legitimate prescription for one of them, if one of them was using illegal pills, or if it was something else.  My memory flashed back to waking up here not remembering anything of the previous night.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I dumped a couple of the pills into my hand, put the lid back on and placed the bottle back on the floor in the position I found it in.  I stood up, shoved the pills into my jeans front pocket, and turned to leave.

I jumped seeing Charlie standing at the door.  "He's not here?" He asked it casually, and not suspiciously.

I shrugged my shoulders.  "No, I guess not.  I just thought I'd surprise him, he wasn't expecting me.  But I had left my chapstick and i.d. here awhile ago, and so I found those on his desk."  I was rambling.  I do that when I'm nervous.  So, I smiled confidently at him, hoping it would mask any guilt I was feeling for snooping and stealing the pills.

"Well, good.  And nice seeing you again.  Hopefully we can all get together for dinner again, sometime soon!"  He patted me on my shoulder and turned to go back towards his room.

I let myself out, and hurried to my car, in a rush to get home, so I could figure out what the pills were.